Plans rejected

Sigh. You do NOT want to know why. When I go through the tons of paper they sent me I will go through the rejection in detail. Not upset, just tired. Its a hiccup on the way to building I guess.

More later.

Back on track

As of today the plans are in the approval stage with a slight hiccup. Seems one form, the Town and Country approval form from the lawyers (the one that is given when the land is transferred) was not submitted with the documents. The draftsman didn't think that was needed at the time, but what happened was the original size of the plot changed to a bigger size mid development and T&C needed to see the re-approval. Anyways all seems well. Hopefully by the end of htis month signed stamped and approved.

Little snags

I guess there are going to be little snags. Turns out the size of the lot was not approved by Town and COuntry. This seems to be a fault with the developer, but what it means is that the deed has one size but T&C has anther SMALLER size. When I go to the bank to secure a loan the discrepancy will send me right back to T&C for re-approval. T&C have indicated that I need to get the developer to sort out the survey. Sigh. Let's hope this is done quickly.

Met with the draftsman

Got the final blueprints in hand. Everything down to the last roof tie. Looks good. He says estimated time to getting Town & Country approval is 2 months from today. Lets see how that works out. Still need to get WASA approval separate but he says that won't be a problem.

Very excited.

Still waiting

Waiting on my draftsman to collect a copy of the deed to we can sort our the land surveyor's report. Sigh. things being mired in molasses at this stage. Need things to get moving. will ask for a updated timeline from him.

Plans being drawn up for Town and Country!

Ok. So here's the process. Once the draftsman has done up the plans he submits it Town and Country for our district (San Juan/Lavantille) which is located in Port of Spain. Once the people in town and country have viewed the plans they send him a notice requesting changes OR stamp it up and give him the documents saying "yes this is approved." He then hands me a paper to go to the bank and after I pay $200 I get certified copies of the plans and all reports done by the relevant authorities, in our case the development has a sewer system and a soak-away system, WASA needs to get involved at the stage of plan approvals to ok any sewerage infrastructure that needs building.

So fingers crossed that by the end of the month (April) I will be going to Town and Country and will be getting my plans approved.

How to save your life if disaster strikes from The Trinidad Guardian

Especially this bit:

Dr Richard Clarke, lecturer at the Engineering Department of the University of the West Indies advises:

1. Ensure that your home, your place of work and your children's schools meet the specifications laid down in the small building code.
The code is available from the Bureau of Standards or online from the Board of Engineering of Trinidad and Tobago's website (www.boett.org).

2. Dr Clarke summarises the Small Buildings Code:

(a) Make sure your foundation is properly built;
(b) the walls should be made with150mm (6-inch) blocks which are joined to foundation, columns, and roof tie beam with steel reinforcing rods;
(c) the reinforcing rods should not be placed at the block joints, rather they should go though carefully made holes in the blocks;
(d) after the reinforced steel is placed in the blocks, the blocks should be filled with concrete mixed in the proper proportions as recommended by the guide;
(e) when the concrete is being poured into the blocks, it should be rodded (compacted using steel rods) to ensure that there are no air bubbles in the concrete;
(f) make sure you have linked "tie beams" at the top of the walls, tying the walls (both external and internal) together; and,
(g) ensure that the all parts of the roof are properly joined together and then joined to the tie beams.

See original here: http://guardian.co.tt/news/general/2010/03/03/how-save-your-life-if-disaster-strikes

Still haven't talked to the Draftsman

grrrr I had marked next week for commencement date. . . I think we're going to be starting late. . .

The Trinidad and Tobago Building code

Ahhh

Didn't know we had one? Me neither! But we do and its VERY comprehensive and VERY detailed. Now you don't HAVE to read the whole thing cover to cover, but if you REALLY want to be up to speed on what's right and what's wrong with the construction of your building, this is a good starting point. Mind you some things only a draftsman/architect/contracter would REALLY understand, but its good to have nontheless.

Since the Haiti earthquake and now (as of writing) the Chile Earthquake, and taking into consideration storms like Ivan in Grenada, we HAVE to build according to code. So knowledge of what is required is important.

I'm not going to go into details, suffice to say that the code IS online so do bookmark it. ALSO you can BUY a hard copy from the Bureau of Standards in Macoya (see google maps here) After you come off teh highway you turn into the street opposite Fireone Fireworks and then turn left. Its at the end of the street with a sign. The price of the book is $300. Not a huge investment on your part to be up to speed.

You know what they say in the OPDM ads: Better to be safe. . .

Working on the plan

So been using Live Interior to get a feels for what the draftsman drew up. It became apparant in the beginning that talking to an architect was NOT going to be "in budget" (oh didn't I mention that before? You need a budget even BEFORE you start building a house! That is, how much you can borrow etc.) Thank god we got a draftsman who is passionate about design and so we didn't need to go through an achitect who, ineveitably, would have charged 10% (yes that's right 10%) on the cost of the house as his fee!

Whoa!

So using Live Interior helps with spacial obsevation, how close a door is to another door etc as well as the all important walkthrough that shows HOW one would access certain parts of the house, as well as the all important lighting and furniture placement. If you have the budget, invest in Live Interior or some other sort of simple 3D program (I use LIve Interior becasue the learning curve is VERY low!)

Then there's the initegration with Google Sketch Up where you can add the roof (the learning curves a BIT steep but once you've got the hang of it you can download elements from Google Warehouse, and put stuff around the house. Why?

. . . because of the next step, once you've done that you can THEN import it into Google Earth! Then if you have the EXACT coordinates of the space, you can PLACE the image of the house onto the property and get a feel for sun movements and terrain (to a point) and so on. You can even stand up next to the house and look around!

Who says technology can't help?

To use Sketch Up with Google Earth see these instructions:

http://sketchup.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=36241

Prelims

What you need to begin.

1. Money
2. Land
3. Plan
4. Contractor
5. Material
6. lots of Panadol

So I have not gotten one yet (because you can't get a mortgage until you get number 3)

We have number do, however, have 2. Its located in this development +10° 42' 48.37", -61° 27' 26.53" Not a bad piece. Its actually VERY flat, far from any flood prone areas and we seem to have nice neighbors.

So right now we're in the process of drawing up a plan. When that's completed I'll post up.

BTW I have LOTS of Panadol!

The Plan

What's this about?

Well I'll tell you. This is my wife and I's journey to build a house. Now I'm not going to put EVERYTHING in here, CERTAINLY not the private stuff concerning our inevitable struggles to move one door 2 inches.

No what I am doing here is simply chronicling the process in case there are other Trini people out there who are in the process OR want to build themselves.

Also its a chance for me to keep a record for posterity. I won't promise to post EVERYDAY, but when there are major events I will try to post it. (Discipline people, discipline!)

So if you know ANYONE who building a house in T&T send them over and maybe they can symphathise with my increasing amount of grey hair!